In February, 1974, the X-Men hadn’t appeared in a new story in their own title in over four years — but while gone, they were hardly forgotten. (Actually, they weren’t even gone, since their book had been resurrected as a reprint title by Marvel’s then-publisher, Martin Goodman, eight months after he’d cancelled the series with issue #66. But you know what I mean.) That’s because a number of people working for Marvel just plain liked the characters, regardless of their allegedly limited commercial viability; and, as writer Steve Englehart puts it in his 2009 preface to Marvel Masterworks — The X-Men, Vol. 8, “the Marvel Universe was a coherent entity, so the X-Men continued to exist in it even if they had no comic to call their own.”
As it happened, Englehart himself was the writer for all but one issue of what would turn out to be the mutant super-team’s most prominent showcase in the interregnum between the release of X-Men #66 in January, 1970, and Giant-Size X-Men #1 in April, 1975 — namely, the short-lived “Beast” feature in Amazing Adventures, which ran from issues #11 (Mar., 1972) through #16 (Jan., 1973) of that title (or through #17 [Mar., 1973], if you want to count a last-minute fill-in that reprinted the character’s origin story). That series, which began as a sort of superhero/horror genre mashup under its original scripter Gerry Conway, leaned more into the tights-and-fights side of that concept under Englehart — who not only gave cameos to all of the newly solo (and furry) Henry “Hank” McCoy’s former teammates over the course of his five issues, but also gave the Angel a featured guest-star role in issue #15… and even worked in several members of the X-Men’s rogues gallery (i.e., Mastermind, Blob, Unus, and Juggernaut) to boot. In that same run of issues, Englehart also developed a complex ongoing plotline involving an insidious evil organization called the Secret Empire — a plotline whose various threads were left dangling by the feature’s termination (and which we’ll have more to say about a little further on).
Concurrent with the latter issues of his Amazing Adventures run, Englehart began what would be a much longer tenure on Avengers. His very first issue, #105, called back to one of the last original storylines to have run in X-Men by bringing back the Beast-Brood — a group of “mutates” created by the mutant team’s arch-foe, Magneto. That was followed less than half a year later by a two-parter in Avengers #110-111 (April and May, 1973) which brought back the Master of Magnetism himself (despite Englehart’s feeling slightly uneasy about appropriating the primo X-villain for his own super-team book; as he amusingly writes in his Marvel Masterworks preface, “There was no X-Men comic, but still, it felt somewhat like prying the crown jewel out of a tiara because nobody was wearing it at the time.”). That two-parter also featured the X-Men themselves as guest stars; although one of their number (already reduced by the Beast’s departure), the Angel, only appeared in flashback. At issue #111’s end, the Avengers and X-Men stood triumphant over Magneto — but Warren Worthington III remained missing:
According to Englehart’s later account, he didn’t necessarily know when or where he would pick up this unresolved plot element — only that he’d deal with it eventually in one of the several series he was then writing. As things turned out, however, neither of the next two comics that addressed the mystery of the missing Angel would carry Englehart’s byline.
The first of these, Incredible Hulk #72 (Feb., 1974), was in fact the first issue of that title since #159 not to include a credit for Englehart, who’d been the series’ regular writer for the last year; instead, its credits box attributed its story’s plot to Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas, and its script to Tony Isabella. But in his Marvel Masterworks preface, Englehart asserts that he did in fact plot Hulk #172 “at the end of my Hulk run, though that credit got left off.” And in Thomas’s own separate introduction to that same Masterworks volume, he states that while “I seem to have plotted” that issue, “for the life of me I can’t remember doing so”. So who knows? In any event, whoever was responsible for the story was evidently as invested in keeping the “missing Angel” plotline moving forward as Englehart himself presumably was.
The bulk of the issue consisted of a fight between ol’ Greenskin and the Juggernaut, conducted in the former’s frequent (literal) stomping grounds of the American southwest. In the story’s climax, the Hulk appears to have soundly defeated his foe — but as he stomps (see?) away from Juggy on the last page, he doesn’t know that the villain has quickly recovered and is about to jump him from behind. But then…
Surprise! Despite the Juggernaut’s being an old-time X-Men villain (not to mention Professor X’s stepbrother), this particular encounter seems to be a completely random one — like the Prof says, he and his companions just happen to be in the neighborhood hoping to enlist the help of Cyclops’ brother, Alex “Havok” Summers, and Alex’s girlfriend Lorna Dane (later to be known as Polaris) in tracking down the still-missing Angel.
As I wasn’t a regular Hulk reader back in 1973, I missed this particular X-appearance completely — on the other hand, I did catch the next one, which came out just a couple of weeks later, in Fear #20. This comic featured the first installment of a new series featuring Morbius, the Living Vampire; Morbius had already been holding down a series in the black-and-white Vampire Tales for several months at this point, but the last time he’d been seen in a color comic, it had been at the end of Marvel Team-Up #4 (Sep., 1972), whose last panel showed Morbius in the custody of, you guessed it, the X-Men. So, in the early pages of Fear #20, writer Mike Friedrich includes a flashback sequence that, after briefly recapping the climactic scenes of MTU #4, goes on to depict Morbius’ subsequent breakout from the X-Mansion — and then goes on to add this:
The timing on this exchange is pretty dicey, frankly, seeing as how MTU #4 had come out months before Avengers #111, and thus well before anyone realized that the Angel was missing (let alone “the other X-Men”). But, whatever. With this last bit of foreshadowing, everything is set for the mystery to be addressed head-on at last — in the pages of Captain America, which is of course being written at this time by our old friend Steve Englehart (though, not so coincidentally, Englehart was assisted for several issues in late 1973 to early 1974 by… Fear #20 scribe Mike Friedrich).
Anyway, we’re now ready to pick back up where we we left off last month in our look at CA #172, in which Cap and the Falcon had a surprise encounter in Nashville, TN with the mutant known as the Banshee… followed by an equally unexpected meeting with Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Professor X. If you haven’t read that earlier post, or simply need a quick refresher to remember all that’s been going on lately with Cap and Falc (which is completely understandable; I mean, it’s a lot), you might want to click on the link above to check it out — because right now, we’re going to just go ahead and plunge straight into Captain America #173, starting with this opening splash by Englehart and his artistic collaborators, penciller Sal Buscema and inker Vince Colletta:
This splash sets up a very nice page-turn reveal — though, of course, unless a reader happens to have acquired this comic in the form of a coverless copy, it’s already been spoiled by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia’s cover illustration. Oh, well.
As you’d expect, Cap, Falc, Cyclops, and Marvel Girl make a good showing against their opponents — but they’re still badly outnumbered, and so, Professor X directs Cyke to turn his optic blasts to the ground. That action ignites a brush fire large enough to cut our heroes off from the assembled S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Tennessee state troopers, and to allow them to escape…
Charles Xavier proceeds to guide his companions to a nearby deserted mine tunnel, and then…
For the next page, Prof. X recaps what readers of Avengers #110-111 and Hulk #172 would have already known; he also provides some fresh information, such as the fact that, prior to jaunting off to the Southwest with the X-Men, he’d attempted to contact Hank McCoy by telepathy and been unsuccessful. We also learn that, after their brief encounter with the Juggernaut, the X-Men had proceeded on to the residence of Alex Summers and Lorna Dane, and found it deserted…
This is the very first indication we’ve been given that the mystery of the missing Angel is connected to the Secret Empire storyline Steve Englehart had been developing in Amazing Adventures prior to the cancellation of the Beast’s series. Had the writer known all along that the two would ultimately dovetail? Or that either would tie into the “Un-selling of Captain America” plotline he’d kicked off ten months earlier in CA #163? Going by his own later description of his creative process back in the day, probably not — but it works just as well as if he had, in my opinion.
Outside of the aforementioned Amazing Adventures run, the Secret Empire’s only prior appearance had been in a 1966 storyline that ran in Tales to Astonish #81-85, encompassing three episodes of that title’s Hulk feature and also crossing over into three episodes of its Sub-Mariner co-feature. The group’s modus operandi at the time had run less to using “advertising — or propaganda“, and more to employing costumed supervillains to steal missiles, but, hey, you’ve got to adapt to stay relevant in changing times…
For my money, the lovely but lethal Linda Donaldson had been the most intriguing supporting character in the Amazing Adventures “Beast” series. (Yes, even over the immortal Patsy Walker.) Introduced by writer 
Gerry Conway mid-way through the first episode in such a way that you just knew she was going to be Hank McCoy’s ongoing love interest — and delineated by artists Tom Sutton and Syd Shores in such a a way that, if you were a heterosexual teenage boy, you almost certainly thought, “wotta lucky guy,” even after Hank’s experimental serum turned him blue and furry — it made for a truly shocking ending when she was revealed on that first story’s last page to be a coldly murderous spy.
Linda had successfully strung Hank along for the next four Steve Englehart-scripted issues — all the while ironically remaining just as blissfully ignorant of his secret identity as he was of her true nature. That had still been the status quo the last time that we’d seen her before this, back in AA #15 — though now we know not only that she’s since transferred from the Long Island branch of the Brand Corporation to their facility in Dallas, but also that before making that move, she’d somehow arranged for the Beast’s capture by her bosses. Yikes.
Linda’s “masters” curtly tell her that they already know about the mutants, thank you very much, and would she just go ahead and get that gyro, already? That sets her to seething in frustration, although she’s mostly calmed down by the time she completes her long drive home…
Feeling that they must have sold the scam by now, the “outnumbered” Cyclops makes a run for it, leaving Linda’s two “chivalrous” rescuers first to make sure of her well-being, and then to introduce themselves…
Sometime later, “Wille” and “Roger” are cooling their heels at the Southview Hotel, when…
I get the need to have our heroes back in costume for the last action sequence of the issue; that said, Cap’s rationale for it — that despite their being wanted fugitives, there’s at least a chance that anyone who might catch them in the act of robbery will be “someone who still believes in Captain America” — falls well short of convincing.
Cap delays the next group of guards by using his shield to slice through the pipes of the facility’s sprinkler system — but he and Falc still aren’t in the clear, so…
So, what do you know? Cap was right all along! Well, maybe. In any event, Brand won’t be calling the cops, or the press, to report that Captain America and the Falcon just pulled off a heist.
And with that ominous pronouncement from Charles Xavier, we’ve reached the end of this episode of the Secret Empire Saga. Join us next time, when the fate of the Beast, the Angel, Iceman, and the other missing mutants will be revealed — and when Steve Englehart may — or may not — have some more Watergate references for us to peruse. After all, they were kind of scarce this go-around, and… wait a minute. Actually, there is a pretty significant reference to the ongoing Watergate scandal in Captain America #173… it’s just that it happens to appear in the issue’s “Let’s Rap with Cap” letters column, rather than within the story.
At the top of said lettercol, placed ahead of the usual assortment of fan mail and editorial replies to same, is the following:
This message — which though unsigned, can only be the work of Steve Englehart — is a fascinating artifact for a couple of reasons. For one, even in the generally freewheeling atmosphere that characterized Marvel in the early 1970s, this sort of direct communication from a creator about the behind-the-scenes decision-making affecting a current, ongoing storyline wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. For another, it’s somewhat at odds with several of Englehart’s later accounts of how he conceived, developed, and executed the “Secret Empire” saga, such as that in the writer’s 2015 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain America, Vol. 8.
In that piece, Englehart indicates that it wasn’t December, 1972, when he first came up with the idea of “Captain America facing a corrupt American government”; rather, it was four whole months later, in April, 1973 (which, as it happens, is the same month that several high-ranking White House aides — including H.R. Haldeman, an obvious source for the Secret Empire’s ad-man operative Quentin Harderman — resigned over the Watergate scandal). But considering that the earliest appearance of the “Un-Selling of Captain America” plotline was all the way back in CA #163 — an issue which, based on its April, 1973 on-sale date, was probably written in January of that year — the timing of having the “government officials” idea in December, 1972, then almost immediately revising it to feature “advertising men” instead, would indeed seem to check out.
Just as intriguing as the notion that this storyline was originally intended to be much more obviously about “unscrupulous politicians” than it ended up being (at least until its final chapter) is the idea that Englehart ultimately decided to wrap things up “a few issues sooner” than originally planned, so that he could “move on to other, un-co-opted ideas”. For those of us who were there at the time, the conclusion to the saga just two issues later is likely to seem to have been inevitable — and the equally classic storyline that immediately followed it, impossible to imagine having come about in any other way than as a direct consequence of that very conclusion. For this particular reader, then, the thought that things could have all gone very differently — and seemingly, rather easily so — is, if not quite staggering, definitely at least bemusing.
We have one last observation to make about Captain America #173 — though to do so, we’ll need to turn from the issue’s letters column all the way back to its cover — and to the price tag included in that cover’s 
upper left corner. Originally published on February 5, 1974, CA #173 was one of the very first Marvel comics to arrive on stands that cost 25 cents — a nickel increase from the previous issue.
As was usual in such circumstances back in the day, the price hike was accompanied by a message from Marvel’s brass offering an “explanation” for the move. But that message didn’t start appearing in the letters pages of the comics themselves until about halfway through the month, so we’re going to postpone our look at it — as well as our discussion of the price increase in general — until our Marvel Premiere #15 post, coming up in a couple of weeks.
Additional art credits:
- Cover to Amazing Adventures #11 by Gil Kane and Bill Everett.
- Cover to Avengers #110 by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia.
- Panel from Avengers #111 by Don Heck and Mike Esposito.
- Panels from Hulk #172 by Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel.
- Panel from Fear #29 by Paul Gulacy and Jack Abel.
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 
Excellent summation of this classic tale up to this point, Alan! Naturally, Englehart’s noting that the growing notoriety of the Watergate scandal causing him to change his original plans for this storyline leave me wondering what his original plans were. But in this era of Marvel in the mid-70s, so many ongoing storylines were cut short for a variety of reasons, mostly cancellation as with that of the Beast and then Warlock earlier in the decade. Alas that the Beast wound up having a very minor role in an epic that was first hinted at in his own brief series. Speaking of which, I’m curious about as to why Linda Donaldson’s hair went from blonde in the not that old then Beast issues, to gray in this issue. I’m sure it was not meant to indicate that she was up in years. Maybe it was just a coloring mistake. This issue also highlights again the mysterious power of Cap’s shield to reduce in size enough for Cap to wear it under a normal dress shirt without it being noticeable at all underneath.
Still, overall another fine chapter in this great epic, leaving Cap & Falc underground in the belly of the beast attempting to devour America. Yeah, a lot of symbolism in that sequence.
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I think the idea was that Linda Donaldson’s hair was more “ash blonde,” similar to the actress Dyan Cannon, who was popular at roughly that time (Last of Shelia and Shamus in 1973)..
Cannon also often played heroines whose loyalty and intentions were somewhat vague and questionable, somewhat like the Linda donaldson charactor in this story.
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I always liked the Lee/Kirby idea that Cap carried his shield in an artist’s pprtfolio slung to his back. It nade sense given his later civilian job.
I guess Murphy Anderson reducing the size of the standard comics page in 1966 undermined this a bit . . . .
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I knew that US comics were drawn with image areas of 13 inches by 18 inches in the original art throughout the Golden and early Silver Age until 1965 or 66, but never heard of any particular artist – Murphy Anderson in particular – being responsible for the decrease in image area to 10 by 15 inches. Could you elaborate more, John?
US comics for the past 30+ years have been drawn with a slightly smaller image area, as shown in the blue line bristol board demarcations.
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I did find this article about the change in size:
https://www.artofthecomicbook.com/blog/art-reduction-act-of-1967.html#:~:text=It%20Starts%20with%20Murphy%20Anderson,15%22%20as%20a%20personal%20preference.
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Don’t forget her performance in “Revenge of the Pink Panther” in 1978. 😉 Loved Peter Sellers!
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. . . where she played that kind of charater . . . .
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Another great article Alan. I’ve gone out and hunted down a fair few of the ‘X-Men lost years’ – however I didn’t know that Fear#20 had a recap in there (It’s on my hunt list but was there due to Gulacy being an artist I admire), so thank you for educating me!
Reading ‘the lost years’ was quite a fun way to thread together some great books, The Defenders, Avengers and Hulk issues being wonderfully entertaining…it all ends with Marvel Team-Up #23 whose the only highlight is a cameo of Charles bringing home Ice-Man for a ‘special mission’ – which turns out to be Giant Size X-Men #1. On the whole it’s some great reading & Englehart does a fantastic job of keeping the team alive for the fans!
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I liked the “display lettering” (sound effects) a lot in your scans of this issue. Artie Simek was one of the best. I hardly remember seeing his work in the bronze age at all, just silver age Marvel (1960s).
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Artie was lettering most of the Spider-man line when I joined the party in 1974. His work was a cut above virtually all of his colleagues. His untimely death in 1975 was a major loss for the comics field.
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I didn’t realise he was only 59 when he passed on in 1975. Far too soon. Definitely one of comics’ lettering heavyweights, along with Gaspar Saladino. In comic strips Ben Oda was superb as well.
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Indeed–Saladino and Oda were both wonderful letterers with decades of experience in the field. And Oda died a bit young too. Mid-60s, if memory serves.
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Wikipedia mentions he was working of Defenders annual #5 when he passed away, the strange thing was I was cleaning and pressing that book and the list of credits is nearly the entire bullpen…without him! Rather strange omission…I’ve put it in my reading stack so I can reread and see if he’s mentioned at the end of the book.
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I double-checked: Simek is mentioned in the letters page of Giant-Size Defenders #5, page 44, as follows:
“The late Artie Simek was the letterer of several pages toward the front of the book. These were Artie’s last work before his death recently, and well…almost anything we could say would sound corny, but Steve [Gerber] wanted to mention that the loss of this dedicated craftsman truly does leave the entire comics industry much poorer.”
Artie’s last work was the top panel of page 11, though the display lettering (the sound effects) probably was added later by credited letterer (and inker) Dave Hunt. (The “Thap!” might be by Simek–do check it out!)
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I’d always liked the X-Men, even moreso than the Avengers, and was frustrated at their absence during the time between the cancellation of their own book and Giant Size X-Men #1 (which I bought and still own). Imagine how frustrated I am now to learn that Englehart was dropping them into so many interesting places to plant the seeds of the Secret Empire and apparently, I missed them all. I think during this time period I’d stepped away from comics a bit. I didn’t really have any friends at that time who read comics and there were issues with an “unsavory element” from my school who hung around the local convenience store where I would normally buy comics, so I think I missed a number the titles we’ve been discussing lately, primarily because I was busy with school and work, but also because I was really tired of being threatened and having my purchases taken away from me. It’s a shame, because I really would have enjoyed all these guest shots of my favorite mutants if I’d known they were out there. By the time Giant Size X-Men #1 came out, I was driving a bit more and able to choose a different place to shop, plus Jackson’s first comic shop would be along in a couple of years and make everything much easier.
But I digress. I really appreciate what Englehart was trying to do here in building, if not a “company-wide event” like the kind we get every other week now, but at least an on-going storyline that worked it’s way through all the books he wrote. I also appreciate his efforts to keep the X-Men alive and well in the public’s mind, even though I apparently missed every one of them. The artwork here was competent, if not particularly special, but it was the writing that made this storyline outstanding and you can see it even today. In fact, the entire run seems to have been built to showcase how much more mature and relevant comics could be when the right people were writing them and opened up a great many more opportunities for other writers down the road. Thanks, Alan.
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I liked this in early 1974. both for the stories themselves and for the hints that people like Englehart; Friedrich and Isabella were beating the drum for an X-Men revival.
Those people did not use the concept that much (other than Friedrich making the Hunchback of Notre Dame a Mutant in Warewolf by Night) before Giant Sized X-Men #1 hit the stands, but the writter of that book was about to use Magneto in The Defenders.
I often wonder how much the sales on these stories drove that revival. I would suspect that the arrival of Dave Cockrum was probably a factor. (Julie Schwartz, unlike with Neal Adams, did not capitalize on an artist having a dispute with Murray Boltinoff.)
Cockrum had alreadt redesigned the Guardians of the Galazy fr Gerber over in MTinO . . . but I suspect both Cockrum and Thomas wanted to keep him away from “superheroes in the future” as a regular feature.
as good as Kirby had been on the early issues of X-Men (and as cool as the fact that both Steranko and Barry Windsor-Smith had worked on it was), the Thomas/Adams X-men that everyone remembered.
Cockrium (and then Byrne) really got that ball rolling again.
And, Fanboy point time, the blasts of Cyclops ** DON’T** melt things or set filres. They are force blasts, not heat blasts. Englehart, Gil Kane and Sal Buscema (he guy who followed Adams for the last new original X-Men story) forgot that here,
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This must be the same time Marvel and DC comics went up from 5p to 7.5p in Britain, I guess.
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Which was exactly the amount of my pocket money back then. Did I throw in with my brother and buy a 15p box of Airfix soldiers… or buy the comic?
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Lack of pocket money became a problem for me when Bolan and Bowie burst onto the scene, and I had to choose between their new records or the comics – the Electric Warrior or the dread Batman.
I’m sure the early Neal Adams issues I bought had pre-decimilisation prices stamped on them, so 1/- instead of 5p usually, but 1/6d for bigger ones like the GL/GA Atom Bomb issue.
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For those outside the UK and Ireland, decimalisation occurred in 1971, when there were now 100 pence per pound. Previously there were 240 pence – or 20 shillings – per pound. Many of the old British coins were phased out that year, whereas others lingered into 1972.
(Southern) Ireland has been using the euro for the past two decades.
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A tanner, a bob, thrupenny bits, half a crown (or half a dollar to my old granny) – the old money had character.
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Yes, comic book prices on both sides of the pond rose dramatically from 1974 until the close of the decade. Paper prices and distribution costs were ever on the rise.
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The Secret Empire was an odd concept. Stan Lee had just introduced “Them” as his new secret conspiracy in Shield and Cap’s “Tales of Suspense” strip so what was the point in introducing another crime ring (https://atomicjunkshop.com/in-hindsight-tales-to-astonish-81-becomes-more-interesting/)? To say nothing of its brief reign and rather clunky end (https://atomicjunkshop.com/even-in-defeat-the-secret-empire-remains-an-enigma/). But as this is a new version of the old, it makes sense they’d try new tactics.
I miss the Marvel and DC universes being “coherent entities.” They don’t feel like they have coherence anymore which is why I read fewer current comics.
I remembered Englehart’s reference to the changing concept of this plotline but wondered if I’d imagined it as I couldn’t pin down the source. Later he’d say he got very little pushback from Marvel on the plotline but that may be an estimation in hindsight.
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I always assumed that Hydra had been a big deal but Lee & Kirby had not known how well it would sell Strange Tales. Therefore,, not sure how well a nearly year long story would sell, in 1965-’66, they killed Hydra off.
At that point, they cast about for some new thing that would stick.
Hydra ended in November of 1965, Them/AIM appear in Strange Tales and Tales of Suspense in March and April of 1966 and the Secret Empire in Tales to Ashtonish in April of 1966. Them/AIM got about a 4 issue Arc. (between two books) Secret Empire’s was longer, but onlt is Tales to Astonish, By the time these story lines had played out, Steranko was aboard and had a new take on Hydra (and Fury and SHIELD) . . . .,
The Criminal Alliance of the World (“CAW”) had three appearances in DC’s Hawkman over about a one year period in ealy 1965 to mid-1966. They were an interesting idea (a criminal organization that uses lost science). However, the spy craze died out and Schwartz and Fox left the book, so it never went anywhere, Seemed like a natural for Grant Morrison . . . ..
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Nice art by Sal and Vinnie.
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Vinnie gets a lot of flak in some circles, but I think his work always looks pretty good with the better reproduction and better paper of the Masterworks editions. He and Sal make a good team.
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Colletta had the requisite talent, but he was often called in at the last moment to get a job in on time. Therefore he was notorious for cutting corners like erasing portions of the pencils or inking a crowd of figures as a solid black silhouette. This has been discussed quite a bit on this blog in the past.
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C.A. and Falc disguised as Roger Stevens and Willie Samuels. Clever!
Does anyone remember when Dracula (not the Marvel version) had the contrived name Al U. Card as an alter ego?
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Son of Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr. in the title role (actually Drac himself).
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That’s great trivia–I thought Dell’s mercifully short-lived Dracula series in the mid-60s originated that alias. I never knew it had a precedent in film!
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A friend of mine describes it as the I. Namtab school of disguise from how often it cropped up in Batman (“Listen Penguin, the papers say I. Namtab’s flying into Gotham with the priceless Namtab ruby!”).
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Man, it was great revisiting this story. Thank you, Alan,
As for how much Englehart had planned this all out – I think one of his strengths was taking what had come before and building on it without necessarily regurgitating it. I’m sure when he dropped those hints in the AMAZING ADVENTURES and early AVENGERS stories, he might have had only vague ideas of where to take them, but when the time came to put it in writing, he found a way to make it all fit.
The little grace notes of characterization throughout were just wonderful. As much as I appreciated when Friedrich did when he provided scripts over Englehart’s plots, there’s just no comparison with when Englehart handled everything.
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It’s the making them fit part that counts. As Alan’s discussed in past posts, some writers would start out without knowing where they were going, then flub the landing.
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